Nighthawks, by Robert L. Dean, Jr.

Nighthawks, by Edward Hopper (USA). 1942.

Nighthawks

Some broad’s just tossed you
and you’re strolling past this corner
joint with the wrap-around window and it’s 3 AM
and the ceiling all lit up like a galaxy
with that new-fangled fluorescent crap
and you stop to watch the lonely planets
frozen inside, just you and the vacant-eyed
storefront peeping in from
across the street, you’re
kinda curious to see what’s gonna
happen, what kind of rumble’s gonna
bust loose, three guys and one redhead
is always trouble, especially
with her dark cavern eyes
contemplating the sandwich she
holds up with one hand instead
of the snap-brimmed fedora sharpie
sitting next to her, hasta be the guy
she came in with, the guy whose hand
her free hand is not quite touching,
the guy staring sullenly ahead, cigarette
dripping from his fingers as if
something’s finally sinking in
behind that hawk beak of a face
and it ain’t what he walked in
expecting, and maybe the counterman’s gonna
flourish an answer out from beneath
the countertop, he’s certainly reaching
for something in his crisp white
uniform and soda jerk cap and it sure as hell
ain’t coffee, three cups sitting neglected
at three cocked elbows, these guys,
these all-night countermen, they’ve
seen it all, heard it all, they’re real
magicians, these guys, his lips are open
a crack, he’s about to spill it, who she
will leave with, will it be
the bird that brung her, or maybe
that loner who’s somehow managed
to find a shadow to lurk in on a stool
at the acute but somehow obtuse
angle of this triangle of an otherwise
reflective countertop, and he looks
familiar, this occluded moon
of human night, at least the bit of his mug
you can see anyway, you know this guy, you can
feel him, he’s you, pondering the world
as it slips through your fingers, or would be, if
you walked in through that yellow door
at the back, and you know in a flash
the counterman’s guess is wrong,
the trick is flubbed,
someone’s switched out the rabbit,
cause that’s just the door to the
kitchen, there is no ingress/egress
to this universe, even the counterman’s
trapped in an orbit of polished Cherrywood,
and you realize how close the color is
to the woman’s dress, hair, irradiated
brick across the street, as if she
planned all this when she gussied
herself up for this tableau vivant, this
final curtain call, realize with new-
fangled fluorescent clarity
Red’s not leaving with Mr. Mystery,
she’s tossing everything and everybody,
in a minute she’ll toss that sandwich
and you and the storefront’ll be keeping
those otherworldly coffee tureens on the back
counter company till the sun comes up,
you might as well light up a Phillies
like the sign above the window says
cause you ain’t going nowhere neither.
 
Robert L. Dean, Jr.

Robert L. Dean, Jr.’s work has appeared in Flint Hills Review, I-70 Review, Illya’s Honey, Red River Review, River City Poetry, Heartland!, and the Wichita Broadsides Project. In April 2017 he organized a program of poetry and improvised music at Fisch Haus in Wichita. His haibun placed first at Poetry Rendezvous 2017. He was a finalist in the 2014 Dallas Poets Community chapbook contest. His haiku placed second in the 2016 Kansas Authors Club competition. He has been a professional musician, and worked at The Dallas Morning News. He lives in Augusta, Kansas.